In the caption included with this photo was this statement “We’re not in love with the flat black—that’ll change.”
Personally, I love the look of that flat black. Especially if it was paired with shiny black side panels like the ones in the picture below which I also pulled from PS Audios Instagram.
The combination of a matte black front and black wood panel sides would be FIERCE!!!
It would be a bad *ss statement piece that I would be showing off to all my friends.
So about that matte black?
Personally, I say keep it and stand out from the crowd.
Love the originality of the design which is not easy to do in speaker land. The one detail I noticed is the rounding of the top of the front panel, it seems rounded too much, like a roll, it does not totally look right to my eye. Maybe making that rounding radius sharper gives a better deign balance.
Lastly I can imagine the flat black of the box looks a bit cheap in person. Yet the idea of a neutral base box with interesting panels is great. Maybe a satin or demi gloss black paint would do the trick and/or a very dark grey would work.
I think a textured painted front in off white or tan ( a la Focal Kanta ) would look much better than the flat black and would contrast nicely with the high gloss side panels.
Regarding the finish, I’ve heard a lot of interesting ideas kicked around PS HQ. Stuff ranging from bone off white, to greys, to black. We’ve been chewing over going gloss to matte to everything in between. I think in particular, the comment on instagram was meant to convey that this flat black finish was not to our high standards.
My first thought was that it was the over spray from another project. The room looked like it might be used for painting.
I would not want a white front, my speakers are a dark rosewood. Even though they are 55"x15" when listening in low light or in the dark, they disappear. I think a light colored baffle would call attention to the placement.
I listen to music, only to the system when evaluating a change of something.
A while back, I had an out of state audiophile over, now a friend who I met on these forums. One of his first comments was that the speakers just disappeared. I hadn’t given it any thought, other than I am often a little surprised at how far to the outside of the speakers the soundstage stretches when it is in the recording.
So I would want a baffle that calls as little attention as possible.
Grills can interfere with the sound. My speakers sound better without them. I believe Vandersteens for example sound bad without them.
Some designers seem to add grills as an after thought.
My speakers are a little too “edgy” for lack of a better term with the grilles off except on certain tracks. Probably due to the room but I haven’t done any REW measurements yet to prove anything one way or the other. My wife definitely likes them better on so its OK with me too.
That’s a fair point, and one we’re keeping in mind. It sounds like our hope is to have a number of options when it comes to appearance.
I can’t imagine we won’t have a black option, it’s just such a timeless look for speakers. It sounds like Paul is keeping an open mind to some more modern options as well.
Paul and engineering have their crosshairs set on the AN3s at the moment, so AN2 and AN1 are both waiting in the wings. We want to have the AN3s ready for Axpona, which means our team needs to be laser focused for the time being.
Our design team has already made some great tweaks and changes to the AN3s - things like upping the volume of the woofer enclosure for better bass response. Things are a lot easier if we make that decision on the AN3s and then can simply change the designs for the AN2s and AN1s in Solidworks before the cabinets get manufactured.
